Milagros in the Community

The main theme of the movie The Milagro Bean Field War, produced by Moctezuma Esparza, revolves around miracles and how the Chicano believes in them. In it's small town of "Milagro" strange things occur all the time because the people are in "need" of them. In one instance, the local police are trying to prevent circulation of a newspaper that could promote bad publicity about the building of a new community housing program (which would put the townspeople out in the street because the high taxes would force them to sell) and succeed but somehow as the policeman is burning them in some clandestine location, the wind picks up and blows them everywhere like a miracle. Ironically, the name of the new site was going to be Miracle Valley, as if to suggest that the name Milagro was somehow wrong because it was in "Spanish." The movie also introduces various stereotypes like the mechanic (a girl this time), that Mexicans are good farmers and that women are not good leaders, although this stereotype is shown on both sides (Whites and Mexicans).

The city of Milagro goes through different changes. 1^st there is the hope of fortune from selling property to the "whites". 2^nd is the confusion that arises after someone starts irrigating his land, bringing to the people of Milagro some form of hope for the future. The confusion is there because they are stuck in deciding what will do them the most good, profits from perhaps farming their lands (mostly for beans and other crops) or selling off their land and moving elsewhere with the supposed compensation. Finally, there is the confusion of wanting to stay a "familia." In small towns, people come together to help each other because they have a knowledge of each other's situations. However, the sellouts break this bond that keep communities together, even refusing to sell Jose, the main character, beans on credit so he could farm them on his crop (he pays with his last ten dollars). The chicano community in this movie goes

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through great lengths to fight for justice because something small like planting beans turns out to be a tactical war to take control of land. As always, the whites are looking to relocate and build on lands that don't belong to them yet this time they come across a problem that could scale out of control. Various pranks are being pulled on the owner of Miracle Valley's construction and the small "bean field" is preventing them from completing their project. The thing that saves this community is not just that Jose is a character who believes in something so strongly he's willing to give his life for it but that also the older generation around Jose don't want to lose their lands and can relate to Jose and give him support when the big-shot tries to stop him by prevent the law from stealing his cow.

However, not all white people aim to bring down the Mexican in the movie. This movie shows that there are people who see the wrongs that are being infiltrated on the Chicano and that they are doing something about it at their own personal risk. The viewer gets three different versions. We get the white scholar, who tries to remain objective about the goings-on but, ironically, provides Jose with a lot of help around the farm. The second man is the white job supplier, who plays both sides but has a soft spot for the Chicano because he knows what the white man has planned and that after the construction job is done, so may his career. And third is a newspaper man who plays the part of the retired activist, who puts ideas into the communities heads like an increasing price of taxes bent on driving Chicanos out of their homes. La Raza has constant been the victim of these type of things but its good to know that in today's society there are people who aren't crushed by the stereotypes and are willing to help us out.

The formation of stereotypes is not uncommon to chicano movies. They spread out rather quickly but in this film we have a woman as a mechanic and in contradiction to our society she is the boss and she has two "lazy Mexicans" as helpers. Usually, people have trouble imagining a woman knowing a lot about a car but trust isn't even an issue in the movie. The stereotype of "la jefa" is shut out completely because her workers follow her orders without reply because they know she knows how to fix cars and that's all you need to know when you're a mechanic. The one about her being a mechanic is shut out, too because she's not wearing a dress while she's doing it and it's obvious that people of the town are confident in her skills. They don't see her female side but her skillful side and that is something to be

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proud of in itself.

Another stereotype is that Mexicans are only good at certain things predictably farming. It is true that Jose seems an expert at farming but so does the sheriff seem an expert at what he does. Even though he tries to cover up for most of his people, he insures that people don't kill each other and that is the job of the sheriff in the end. He doesn't even draw his gun at all, whereas the people of New Mexico who defend Jose and his intentions, draw their guns almost at every turn in the movie (apparently, you can't have a war without guns or it'd be called The Milagro Bean Field Fist Fight).

After a bit of watching you notice that even though some women have positions of leadership (because the town is small), they are looked down upon as leaders, even though the mechanic of the town leads them to fight for justice. This backwards thinking of the Mexican-American could be said to be hereditary or learned from mother's because some mother's never fight back against their dominant husbands, hence the child assumes that most women accept their roles as the home-maker. But now they tell girls "que no sean tan calladas."

It's hard for the people of the town, however, to stay concentrated on this concept because the town isn't just falling apart physically (someone slammed the door and the knob broke off behind them) but it's also falling apart emotionally because Devine construction is threatening to take over their lands. The true emotions of the town are seen through the eyes of a little old man named Amarante with his pig named Lupita and an obsession that there is a saint for everything (ones that protect you from snakes, bad luck and help you do things, to name). He's the one that informs the people that there is a change coming (because one person begins to irrigate his father's farm land) and it turns out to be him that makes the biggest change in the man's life (Jose's) because Jose mistakenly shoots his pig and then Amarante himself (the pig for thinking she ate his crops; Amarante in self-defense.)

The movie eventually comes to a happy ending conclusion, being that it was a comedy-drama and has light and dark settings to change moods (most of the light scenes were followed by some show of miracles and the dark scenes for someone scheming against Jose's efforts to grow frijoles). The people come together in this movie to provide an okay film. One of the more memorable scenes of the movie is

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one of conflict between Jose and his wife, where he's asking her to punch him, that she wouldn't last one round with him and she says, "I'll hit you so hard, they're arrest you in El Paso for speeding." There's lots of scenes of big tractors destroying the environment to make the town, probably an effort by Robert Redford, the director, to show how these type of projects hurt the environment as well as the people living in the areas. Another memorable scene comes later in the movie, when the newspaper activist refuses to help the mechanic in her cause to go against the devine construction project and pleads with her to give it up but she says, "My people have been here for 300 years," trying to show him how un-just it seemed to try and throw someone out to make a millionare happy.

The movie The Milagro Bean Field War has that connection for the chicanos that we can relate to, when we come upon scenarios where we are treated worse than others because of the color of our skin but it also has that tinge of sarcasm and humor that we encounter and every day life and it's a good example of the chicano life in L.A. even if it happened in New Mexico. Hopefully, there will be more movies that could reduce the stereotype-strength of women leadership in today's society but that stereotype is fighting more than one race. I give the movie five stars and a half, reduced from a max of six only because everyone went to pick beans but no one started cooking tortillas.